“This is modern life for Beijing people”.
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Despite some improvement in Beijing’s air over the past year, readings of risky particles Tuesday were as high as a dozen times the safe level, in what has become an embarrassment for a government that has made a priority of cleaning up the legacy of pollution left from years of full-tilt economic growth.
Most of the pollution is blamed on coal-fired power plants, vehicle emissions and construction and factory work. As China has promised to reduce coal usage in a first step toward emissions reductions, it will be interesting to see if more auto bans will go into effect in Beijing in the future.
The “red alert” announcement, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that things are much worse than they have been.
It came after a thick grey haze shrouded the city with concentrations of PM2.5 – the harmful microscopic particles that penetrate deep into the lungs – recorded at 634 micrograms per cubic meter; the WHO’s recommended reading is just 25 micrograms per cubic metre.
By Monday, Beijing listed its air quality index at 253, or above the 200 that the USA government defines as “very unhealthy”. When municipal authorities announced the red alert on Monday evening, Solis, like many Beijing residents, was caught off guard. Use of a auto is restricted to every other day depending on its license plate, and officials planned to deploy extra subway trains and buses to compensate.
A Beijing resident who gave his only his surname, Du, said he was taking advantage of a lack of crowds near the capital’s ancient Forbidden City to stroll and take unique photographs. The red alert is enacted when air pollution scales rest between 300 to 500 micrograms per cubic meter for 72 hours. Beijing authorities said at the time that the initial forecasts were for less time so no alert was called for, but critics maintained they were seeking to avoid the toughest restrictions for political reasons.
The Beijing city emergency office said “still weather, reduced cold temperatures and an increase in humidity” prompted the red alert, according to Xinhua.
Others posted photos of the city on the day.
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Such serious warning has been issued for the first time in history. New research on the health impacts of outdoor air pollution suggests that smog is responsible for more than 3 million premature deaths around the world each year and that this number could double by 2050. A study led by atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld, of Germany’s Max Planck Institute, published this year in Nature magazine, estimated that 1.4 million people each year die prematurely because of pollution in China. Most of this pollution is caused by factories which makes China the biggest emitter of carbon. Chinese researchers have identified pollution as a major source of unrest around the country.
